


like a name in a fairytale

by portions_forfox



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-04
Updated: 2012-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 01:17:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portions_forfox/pseuds/portions_forfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the one thing she understands, the one thing she knows that he never will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Gods of Time

Maybe it should mean something, Amy thinks, that these last few moments are spent thinking of him.  Maybe it should.  She's realizing, slowly and then with a jolt, a sickening lurch in her gut, that really, there's no escaping it. It was always going to be him.

Rory is grasping her hand, kneeling by her torso and she thinks maybe her head's in his lap, because it's rather warm here, isn't it.  She can't quite see his face, can't quite make out the mild, familiar lines of his cheekbones, his nose, his chin ... He's simple to her, open, easy ... Rory.  It's funny, she thinks, that she's heard him deemed  _down-to-earth_. It's rather fitting, she decides.  Yes.  He should never have left his Earth, he should never have ... That was her doing.  Her life-- _timeline,_ you might call it--had gotten tangled up with his at some indistinguishable point, and he'd been hauled along on an adventure only she'd been meant to take.

He'd done well, Rory Williams.  He'd done so well.

She feels a warm rush come over her, for him, for the boy who saved her from herself.  He'd done nothing drastic, nothing magical, nothing to sweep her off her feet--but he'd been  _there_ , there unfailingly from the very start, and consistency was something Amy could use a little of.

He's never asked for much, never asked to see the universe or the world or even to leave little Leadworth.  After all, you don't ask for something you don't want, and Rory Williams had never wanted to hold the stars in the palm of his hand.

But Amy Pond.  She had.

 

 

 

 

He'd dropped from the sky on an uneventful midnight in Leadworth, England.  The wind swayed the branches of the trees with no real ambition and the grass was cool, wet already with dew.  Amy remembered.  

"Amelia Pond," he'd said.  "Like a name in a fairytale."  It had taken her until now to realize that's exactly what she was: a character in a fairytale, one that featured but not written by the Doctor himself.  Everywhere he went the golden swirls of thick-drawn ink and lulling voice of fantasy followed close behind, his blue pumpkin carriage gallivanting about, scattering fairy dust.

But it wasn't up to him, not really, who the heroine was.  Maybe somewhere along the way the gods of time pick and choose the leading ladies, and their names, their lives, become a fixed point, woven into the fabric of time.  Amy Pond's especially.

The crack in her wall was there for a reason.  All those piles of crimson curls, those sea-green eyes, the face dotted by the sun and the pale, unblemished swan skin ... A lonely orphan, living with the evil aunt, precocious but insecure, lovely but already broken ... She must have been too much, too perfect a heroine to resist, all of her storybook potential bursting from within.  Her fate was carved in time--yet time itself is bendable.

The whirling sound that came that night, just after her desperate plea, her prayer--the oddest instance of the night was not the man or his blue box or her aunt's demolished shed--it was that sound.  The familiarity of it.

Still, it was the first she'd heard the TARDIS' brakes, yet she could have sworn it was a sound, a song she'd heard whispered across the treetops on a summer day.  That's why she hadn't been wary of him, the strange man who destroyed her shed and devoured all their fish fingers and custard--his vehicle spoke words of welcome.  

Things don't always happen to her in the right order.

 

 

 

 

Amy forces her eyes to open--they're so heavy, all of the sudden--and once again she sees Rory's face, earthly, plain, a reminder of the simple joys in life, of home.

The thing is--the defining  _thing_ that means more then than it ever could now--is that Amy has never much cared for home.

The Doctor's face is otherworldly, rightly so, and Amy knows he hasn't always looked that way, and can't forever, but she won't picture him any other way.  His face, his body, his mannerisms, they suit him, and of course that's ridiculous, but it's true.  Everything is different when it comes to the Doctor.  His jaw was never quite straight, his face always a bit asymmetrical, like it too had no patience for routine. (It's now that Amy realizes she's already speaking in the past tense, letting the idea wash over her until it seems to settle.)

_Where is he, anyway_? Amy wonders, and it's surprising how idle, how lacking in originality her thoughts are at such a moment ( _Is it like this for everyone?  Is this how it works?_ ) She remembers where they are then, and what they're fighting, and of course the Doctor's off doing the fighting--winning, hopefully ... probably.  It's then that Amy realizes he doesn't know, he has no idea, and she feels a surge of panic.  If she can't live without him, and she never has, not since she was seven (but no, before that--before that he'd been there somehow; she was his heroine, his leading lady, there was no changing that), then how is she supposed to _die_ without him?  And he doesn't know.  He has no idea that his mad, impossible Amy Pond is dying, will be dead, not five or ten or fifty years from now but _now_ , right now.  He has no idea.

"Amy," Rory's saying, and his words are blurrier than even his face, "Amy, please, just--God, no ... stay ... stay here ..." She can feel something wet, something warm on her face, and she hasn't the slightest clue where it came from.  She tastes salt on her dry lips, and knows these are tears.  Hers?  Is she--?  No, his.  Rory's.  Rory's.  "Amy, just ... "

And suddenly he is there.  His face hovers above hers, and everything snaps into focus, clearer than she'd like, _sharper_.  He's not crying like Rory, but she notices, almost absurdly, that his forehead is creased into a thousand tiny lines ... It's something to focus on, at least.  She feels pressure, something strong--he's holding both sides of her face.

"Amelia Pond," he tells her sternly, and she can see him so much better than she ever could before.  How did she never notice his eyes?  Were they always this way?  Always so blue?  Always so ... so _resigned_ to agony?  Maybe they were.  Maybe she couldn't see.  

Three words, ten letters: " _You will not._ "  And it's an order.

But she's surpassed him now.  This is the one thing she understands, the one thing she knows that she never will.  Everything makes so much sense now, _Doctor_ , and she smiles.

She's searching for his hand--it's still cupping her face, but her grip won't tighten, her hands won't respond--everything feels soft around the edges, like maybe it would be all right to just give up ... So she just lays her hand on his calloused knuckles, her fingers curling over his as best they can.  It's harder than she thought.  She looks up at him, but even now it's harder to see, the sides are closing in and lights are blurring like tears, and that's when his composure starts to break, and he's no longer stern, no longer in control.  He's desperate now, clinging to her head, stroking her hair, shaking her just the tiniest bit.  Shaking her because he's angry, angry at her, can't help it, but that's all right, she doesn't mind--he just doesn't see, that's all.

"Oh, Doctor," she sighs, and the words are clean and bright, "You were always supposed to be mine."  Weren't you.  And for the first time since all of this started, the acceptance is smudged and she feels a twinge of sadness rise up in her throat, the one word that can't save her clinging thick like butter to her tongue-- _unfair._ She frowns.  This clarity comes with a price: regret.  The thoughts aren't particularly creative, aren't new, aren't unexpected, but they're there and they sting just as much as if they were the first-- _How could I not have seen?_

"Amy, Amy, Amy," the Doctor whispers, shaking his head.  "Don't you know?" He chuckles, low and rumbling, and Amy feels it roll through her body, tickle at her chest with warmth and slow laughter and yet somehow, _somehow_ flick up in the pit of her stomach like a knife.  "I always was."

She smiles anyway.  Pats his hand.  Warm, and feels the first tear fall; and like the beat of a drum, keeping time to a song that can't ever end, the time gods shift their story once again.  Their fairytale is over now, and its ending means it never was.

She takes one last look at him, her raggedy Doctor, the man she's broken, the man she's fixed, the man who's torn her and kicked her and put her back together again over and over and over again, and now--now she's at peace.

She dies still holding his hand.


	2. Red Hair in the Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants to find the color in Amy Pond.

He knows he shouldn't--God help him, does he know--but he also knows that at this point in time there is absolutely nothing that can stop him.  
  
The TARDIS takes a little longer to come alive this time.  The lights on the console flicker uncertainly, kindling to (a somewhat dimmer) life one by one.  The engines whir for longer than necessary, and the Doctor can tell in the back of his mind that she's delaying takeoff because she knows, doesn't she, that this is a bad idea.  That it will only make things work.  That she can't save him, her, them, this time around.  Everything is languid now, every passing moment wrought with excruciating slowness, every second living as though dying ... Something seems to be closing in on him, on time itself.  
  
There is no joy in takeoff, no thrill to short-circuit his brain, no wave of sheer glee to lift his giddy heart.  He lands before he can even recall leaving--when exactly had he decided this?  
  
He steps off the TARDIS because there's nothing else to do, the door fluttering shut behind him with a feeble scrape.  His food treads out onto the ground, and each step is heavy, heavier than before.  Since when has it been a massive undertaking just to lift his leg?  Has everything always looked so fixed, so unwavering, so black-and-white?  Where has the color gone?  
  
He finds it, of course.  That's what he's come for.  
  
Red hair in the garden.  
  
The sun lights up the flecks of gold among the fire, the hollows of each soft curl a rich auburn shadow.  She's a goddess on earth, he thinks to himself, and flowers bloom with just the touch of her pale, freckled finger.  She dwells in a sea of them, fervent geraniums, timid pansies, proud dahlias and--and oh.  Oh, the sunflowers.  Her back is facing him as she walks among the sunflowers.  All he can catch sight of is her hair (of course, of course her hair) amidst the rows on endless rows of sunflowers, each straining towards the sky, each brighter than the one before.  
  
He's landed in her backyard, quiet as a mouse.  But she's heard him.  Of course she's heard him.  
  
(Because years ago, when time was on her side and she still held her childhood in her hands, she'd heard a sound, a song, threaded into the quilt of her dreams, an extra note in all the music that she heard, a note she couldn't find on the piano.  A whir.  A whisper.  An engine, a start.)  
  
She's racing toward him, and he hadn't meant for this, no no no he hadn't meant for this at all.  He'd wanted to watch her, to see her, to absorb her from afar, Amy Pond on fire.  Because she was always, always on fire.  
  
But no.  Now he has gotten himself in too deep, he's opened up a Pandora's box even more terrifying than the last, a box he's even less ready to face.  But it's running at him right now, sun-specked hair swelling out behind in sprightly waves, alert, alive, afire.  
  
And now she is here, she is here in his arms, and she is warm (not cold) and squirming (not still) and she smells like apples and sunflower sand Amy (not--)  
  
"Doctor!" she shouts, except she's not shouting, it only feels as though she is, because her words are close and made of breath and breath is made of life and life is made of Amy--or is it the other way around?  "You've come back!"  
  
"I always do," he says, and it is true, even in the end it is true, because he's not the one who--  
  
"It's been a month," she tells him, grinning and clutching each of his arms.  There are tears in her eyes that she's ignoring.  "I mean ... I know you're not always sure exactly how long it's been, so ... " She trailed off, narrowing her eyes.  "How long  _has_  it been for you?" she wants to know.  "Five minutes, I suppose," and it's a grumble, a full-on Pond-grumble.  
  
"No, no," the Doctor replied, a tiny smile slipping through, and he casts his eyes down to hide the tinge.  "Much longer than that."  
  
Amy clamps both hands over her mouth, looking both grave and delighted.  "Oh--oh my God, are you a future-Doctor?"  
  
The Doctor raises both eyebrows and nudges her playfully.  "Let's just say I'll be back here in about, oh, one month, and I won't remember any of this."  
  
Amy giggles.  "Ooh, how exciting!  You and I have a secret then, eh?" She bumps her hip against his conspiratorially, placing one finger over her lips.  "Don't worry, I won't tell him--you, that is."  
  
The Doctor smiles again, hands sliding deep into his pockets.  Amy chooses to ignore his slumping shoulders for the time being.  
  
"C'mon," she says, looping an arm through his.  "Let's take a turn about the garden, olden-style."  
  
"After you, m'lady," says the Doctor, falling into step beside her.  
  
"Oh!" Amy burst out suddenly, their leisurely stroll interrupted before it begins.  She leaps out in front of him, eyes wide.  "But--if you're from a later time, then that means ... that means you don't die!  You're not going to die!  Ha!"  She lets out a short bark of euphoria.  "I knew it, I totally knew it ... "  
  
"Amy," the Doctor responds solemnly, though he's locking down a grin.  He grasps both her shoulders firmly and looks her square in the eyes: "This does not mean you can behave any differently than if you truly believed I was going to die.  That could meddle with everything that's happened, and alter it all.  Do you understand?"  
  
"Yes," Amy replied, sighing; her bubble had been effectively burst.  "I understand."  
  
"Do you promise you'll act no differently now that you know?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, I promise!" she insisted with exasperation, returning to his side to resume their walk.  
  
"So," she began, "tell me about our future adventures.  Because we'd better have them!  I mean, I know when you left last month it felt rather ... permanent.  But ... but you did say I hadn't seen the last of you, which means we  _do_  have adventures, don't we, Doctor?  You and I, we've got to."  
  
The Doctor glances sideways at her, but when she meets his eyes he smiles reassuringly.  "Yes," he answers.  "Yes, we do."  It's not a lie.  
  
Amy is visibly enlivened, which, as always, gives the Doctor that ridiculous surge of self-satisfaction, like he's done something right for once.  (Which is absurd, really.  He's done nothing right, and was quite definitively doing absolutely everything wrong.  He didn't deserve to see a happy Amy; he didn't deserve to believe he could still bring a smile to her face.)  
  
"I see you've planted flowers," he observes as they approach the garden.  It's a colossal understatement.  
  
Amy stops for a moment to survey her work, arms crossed, bottom lip bit in concentration ... The Doctor watched her, and saw with a pang that all the color here was almost overwhelming.  There was physical color, of course--the blinding bright blueness of the sky, the fresh, minty green of the trees, the endless array of flowers positively  _bursting_ with it--but there was other color, too; color in the high-up chirping of the birds, color in the solidity of the earth beneath his feet, color in the untainted vividness of Amy's  _concentration_  face, how familiar, how pure it was to him.  It's hard to explain.  She's hard to explain.  Nothing new.  
  
"I guess I just wanted to be reminded of everything I've seen," Amy's saying, and he follows her into the garden, into the rows and rows of towering sunflowers.  She weaves between the stems like the master in her fields.  What is the Doctor's maze is Amy's kingdom.  He keeps track of her by keeping an eye on her purple shirt and orange hair--he almost wants to reach out and hold it, trailing behind her like a little boy hanging onto a pony's tail.  "I mean ... married life is great and all ... " The Doctor follows the sound of her voice, temporarily disoriented.  " ... and you know how much I love Rory.  He's--well--the perfect husband ... " The Doctor catches sight of a flash of purple, and lunges for it before it can move again.  "It's just ... it's not the same.  I miss being an explorer of the universe, you know?  I miss all that."  She spins around without warning, and the Doctor attempts to look like he's been right behind her the whole time.  "I miss you, Doctor."  
  
He smiles.  "And I you, Amy Pond."  
  
She steps out of the rows now, and both of them tilt their heads upward simultaneously, like somehow they're synced by some invisible string.  They shade their eyes from the sun and watch the sunflowers in full bloom.  
  


 

 

-

 

 

 

They spend the day together, and the Doctor is surprised to find that it is wholly ordinary, and not entirely unpleasant.  Time always flies when you're with Amy--especially when you're running.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

"Where's Rory?" he asks over tea in the nook.  Nook.  Who'd ever have guessed such a thing existed?  It was a marvelous invention, like a kitchen, only smaller, and generally aimed at more flippant consumptions, such as those of muffins and crumpets and tea.  
  
"He's on a retreat," Amy replies casually, returning the kettle to the stove.  
  
The Doctor is horrorstruck.  "Retreat?  Rory's gone to war?  Don't tell me all that 'Roman' stuff's gone to his head!  He can't go to  _war_ , that's--wait, what year is, anyway?  Is there even a war to go to?  Well, of course there is, there's always a war, you humans and your wars, I mean--"  
  
" _No_ , Doctor," Amy assures him, rolling her eyes and patting his arm sarcastically from across the table.  "He's gone on a corporate retreat, only ... for doctors and nurses and what not."  She waves her hand in the air dismissively, bringing the teacup to her lips.  
  
"Oh," the Doctor says, deflated.  "Right then."  Who would've thought Rory had an actual job?  It's easy to forget things like that when you're the Doctor.  
  


 

 

-

 

 

 

Somehow the Doctor gets to talking (it was quite easy for him, believe it or not).  He tells Amy stories of places he's been and people he's loved, people whose dreams he's outshone.  Amy likes the tale of Martha Jones (the Doctor would draw parallels between the two of them later, when he had more time for his typical painstaking angst).  He speaks of the Family of Blood (Amy earnestly searched herself for a pocket-watch in the hopes that she was a secret Time Lady, but no such luck), and of Martha Jones, who walked to save the Earth.  
  
("She saved you," he told her, "you just don't remember."  Amy smiles smugly and shrugs.  "You've forgotten, haven't you, Doctor?" and she tugs his ear, "I can remember things I'm not supposed to."  She drums her fingers against the counter in a steady rhythm.  "I would've been ... twelve, yeah?"  The Doctor drags his eyes away from her beating hand to look at her  _concentration_  face.  "Yes," he says, hiding a smile, "you would've.")  
  
He tells Amy about the Dalek with the heart of gold at the peak of the Empire State Building, how he and Martha had saved the humans (as per usual) but let the hybrids slip through their fingers.  
  
All of the sudden Amy leaps up from her seat in a frenzy.  Waving her arms around spastically, she shouts by way of clarification, "Ooh!  Ooh!"  
  
"What?  What is it?" the Doctor asks, rising to his feet--he's unsure whether to be intrigued, excited, or concerned.  One or all of the three.  
  
"Speaking of the Empire State Building ... " she says, tapping his nose, and then she flees to the living room.  The Doctor follows closely behind, befuddled.  
  
Amy shuffles through some (unorganized, of course) bins beneath the telly, then exclaims, "Aha!" and bounds over to the DVD player to pop in a disc.  
  
"Have you seen it?" Amy wants to know, eyes elatedly wide as the Menu screen popped up.  
  
"No ... no, I can't say I have.  Met Cary Grant, of course--worked with him while it was filming--interesting man, very interesting man, quite a mean left hook as well--but I never actually saw the final product.  Haven't quite had the time.  Is it good?"  
  
"Hnfgh!" Amy snorts mockingly.  " ' _Is it good_ ,' he asks me.  Of course it's bloody good.  It's fantastic!"  
  
"Fantastic, eh?" the Doctor muses.  "Fantastic.  I should say that more often.  Used to say it a lot, hardly say it at all now:  _fantastic_."  
  
"Focus, Doctor!" Amy orders, slapping a hand across his cheek a bit harsher than probably necessary.  
  
"So," he declares (when he's finished whining over the blow), " _An Affair to Remember._   I suppose we're going to watch it now, then."  He wrinkles his nose.  
  
"Yes," Amy agrees, forcing him down onto the couch by the shoulder.  "I don't care  _how_  short your attention span is--you  _will_  sit through this."  
  
"Fine ... fine ... "  
  


 

 

-

 

 

 

"Are you crying?"  
  
"No ... "  
  
"You're crying, aren't you?  I can't believe it!  You're properly, properly crying!  Ha!"  
  
"Shush, I'm not."  
  
"Oh, don't try and deny it.  There are most certainly some tear-tracks on your face.  And--oh Lord--was that--was that a  _sniffle_  I just heard?"  
  
"N--no.  It wasn't!  Sniffle?  I don't sniffle."  
  
"You just did, you just--see?  There it was again!  You, my friend, are beyond a shadow of a doubt,  _in tears_  over  _An Affair to Remember._ "  
  
"Stop it, I'm not!"  
  


 

 

-

 

 

Amy takes him for a walk in the park.  The trees are flush with green, sun leaking through the gaps in the branches to flick across the path.  A boy and his dog play frisbee on the grass.  Two teenagers snog on a picnic blanket.  An old man peels an orange on a park bench--the Doctor can smell it, sweet and tangy and pungent, and it reminds him of Christmas in an orphanage, 1892.  
  
A nice old lady walks the opposite direction, flashes them a sweet, denture'd smile and says,  
  
"What a beautiful family you'll make."  
  
The Doctor stops, stock-still, and begins to stutter--  
  
"Oh, we're--we're not--"  
  
"Sshh," Amy says, patting his arm as the lady walks on, still grinning.  "Don't ruin it."

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

He takes her out for dinner at a fancy restaurant.  She ties her hair back in a bun at the nape of her neck, wears a black silky  _thing_  that lights the skin around her collarbone, pearly, smooth.  She straps on high heels and tells him her feet are hurting for him, smacks her lips as she surveys the menu.  They are firetruck red that night--her lips, not the menus.  She keeps a tube of lipstick in her purse.  
  
The Doctor wears a suit, wraps a tie around his neck and says his bowtie is lonely because of her.  Combs his mangy hair and puts on a pair of wing-tips and holds her arm, _like a real gentleman_ she says.  
  
She bumps his knee five times under the table.  He wonders if she noticed.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

"Where the bloody hell are the fish fingers?" the Doctor demands to know, rooting feverishly through the contents of the Ponds' freezer.  He elects to ignore the various items that fall to the floor as a byproduct of his search.  "And the custard, for that matter!"  
  
Amy shrugs and turns a page of the newspaper, nonchalant.  Or something.  "Rory doesn't like fish fingers," is her airy supply.  Luckily the Doctor is paying too much attention to the freezer to notice her face.  
  
"What?!" he cries.  "Doesn't like fish fingers?  Blasphemy!  No matter--Rory's a fool, then.  We'll just have to make a trip to the grocery store to get some."  He rubs his hands together loudly, then slaps them onto his hips, pleased with his ingenious idea.  
  
"Oh we will, will we?" Amy says with one cocked eyebrow.  She sets down the newspaper on the kitchen counter (she hasn't really been reading it anyway--boring stuff), slides of her stool and makes her way over to him.  "And you supppse I'll be paying for this, then?  You know,  _nurse_  and  _kiss-o-gram_  aren't exactly the highest-paying of career, and I can't afford to--"  
  
"Oh shush, I've got my sonic, haven't I?" the Doctor reasons, whipping it out.  "Now where's the closest ATM?"  
  
After withdrawing a total of £5,000 in notes (the Doctor admits he isn't quite sure how much a box of frozen food costs nowadays, considering galactic comparative currencies and the like), Amy and the Doctor find themselves in line at the Costcutter; it being ten-thirty at night, the express lane is noticeably sparse.  
  
An androgynous cashier with an incapacity for facial expression rings them up.  The Doctor beams proudly at him/her as s/he does so.  
  
"That'll be ten pounds," s/he said in a monotone.  The Doctor hands him/her a £100 note.  
  
"Thank you!" he gushes, seizing the plastic bag with purpose.  "Keep the change, buy a watch!"  
  
Over fish fingers and custard ("You're right," Amy admits, "It's so disgusting it's good."), the Doctor asks Amy if she remembers very well the first night he'd eaten this meal with her.  
  
" 'Course I do, you stupid bloody idiot," Amy grumbles, and she stuffs more food in her mouth.  
  
The Doctor chews, smiling absentmindedly and staring at her.  Strands of hair have fallen out of her bun, and she doesn't know it, but she has a spot of custard on the corner of her lip.  
  
He grins.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

"Doctor?"  
  
"Mmm ... "  
  
"Why were you crying?"  
  
" ... Hm?"  
  
"At  _An Affair to Remember_ \--why were you crying?"  
  
" ... I don't suppose I know."  
  
"C'mon, you must have  _some_  idea."  
  
"No, really, I don't."  
  
"Doctor ... "  
  
"Huh ... oh, all right.  I suppose it just ... reminded me."  
  
"Reminded you of what?"  
  
"So many  _questions_ , Pond."  
  
"I only ask because you never really answer."  
  
"Huh.  Touché.  All right, if you must know, it just got me thinking ... "  
  
"What?"  
  
"It just got me thinking, Amy: why sit idly by and watch this movie on a screen when we could  _fly_ to the Empire State Building, and we could watch Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr share that last fateful kiss as the cameras roll in 1957, and if that's not enough we could skip ahead to 1993 and be there as Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan exchange the first hellos in  _Sleepless in Seattle_ , and if that's still not enough we could fly right back to the TARDIS and head to 2029, where they're filming a combined remake of both movies, called  _Sleepless and Remembering_ , and Amy, it wins all the awards."  
  
" ... Who's in it?"  
  
"Suri Cruise and Maddox Jolie-Pitt."  
  
"No way!"  
  
"Yes.  Way."  
  
"Huh ... "

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

"There's a carbon copy of another me on Earth in an alternate universe," he tells her.  
  
She smiles, taps his nose.  "There's one of me, too."

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

He points to a star cluster left of their sprawled-out bodies, high up and above.  
  
"You've been there," he tells her.  
  
"I have?" says Amy breathily, turning to him for confirmation.  Somehow, her eyes are greener in the moonlight.  
  
"Yes," he says, and he turns his head sideways so their noses are pressed together.  "You and I together."  
  
"Hold my hand," she whispers, and he does.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

"Come with me," he says, stands in the threshold of the TARDIS.  
  
Amy smiles, wistful, her eyes on the dewy grass.  It's funny how much she can figure out about him in just a day.  "No," she says.  
  
"Amy, please," and his voice is urgent; he grabs both her hands, trying to get her to look at him.  "I could show you the planet Sakura, where it's springtime all year round.  I could take you to the Saharan deserts of the Blistorn galaxy, where any plant that grows is worshipped forever.  I could take you to the very first Beatles concert, just after Ringo joined--he'd like you, I think.  I could show you three hundred years from now, when your Aunt Sharon's great-great-great-great-great granddaughter seduces the married prince of Monaco.  I could take you to a planet where they worship redheads--we could take Vincent, you two could be royalty!  I could go visit my wife Marilyn and take you with me--she's not really the jealous type.  Amy ... Amy, don't you see how much is out there for you and I to do?  I could take you back here one day and you'll look up at the stars and you'll know, you'll  _know_  you've been to every single one.  We don't have to end, Amy!  The girl who waited and her raggedy Doctor.  We're fated.  Amy, can you imagine?"  
  
She's looking at him now, staring at him, and her mouth hangs open slightly and tears are in her eyes.  He's clutching her hand so tightly it almost hurts.  
  
"Doctor," she says softly, "No.  You're running from something, and whatever it is, you have to face it now."  
  
"No," the Doctor growls, " _no_."  He lets go of her hand and kicks the TARDIS, his rage and desperation overcoming him, frightening Amy.  He catches his breath, leans against the TARDIS with his head hanging between his arms.  "Amy," he tells her, low and earnest, "you don't understand."  He whirls around, gazing at her with tragic eyes.  "A Time War, the end of the universe, my own  _death_  ... those I can face.  But this, Amy,  _this_  ..." And he seizes her wrists now, leaning close to her, his face haggard.  She gasps and pulls away on impulse, but he's gripping her tightly.  "This will be the end of me," he hisses, and though he can't say--no words can slip through his teeth--his eyes are reaching to tell her everything, searching her in all their misery and desperation and sorry, sorry hope.  She doesn't learn everything, but she learns enough--she's not sure what--and softens, allowing him to hold her, stroke her hair, touch her face, kiss her forehead, hold it to his own.  She lets her eyes slip closed, notices the wet, warm touch of a tear clinging to an eyelash.  
  
"Amy," he begs, "run with me.  We can escape ... everything.  We can escape time, we can escape ..."   
  
"I won't," she whispers as he kisses her forehead, her hairline, her nose.  
  
"I won't," she whispers, her eyes, her jawline, her cheeks.  
  
"I won't," she whispers, her lips, her teeth, her tongue.  
  
" _I--_ " a gasp, a breath.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

"Is this a dream?" she whispers.  They lay side by side in the dew.  "Because I would never do this in real life, I would never ... but I do it all the time in my dreams.  I mean ... _all_  the time."  Maybe it's strange, she thinks, that of all the times for her voice to crack, it's now.  
  
"Yes, Amy," the Doctor replies, kissing her forehead one last time.  A choked sigh slips through his lips, easy, soft like a breath.  "This was a dream.  You should--you should forget this happend.  No use in mentioning it to me, or to him, or to ... to anyone, because ... it's not real."  
  
Amy frowns, closes her eyes.  Her throat hurts.  "That's what you always say," she chokes out, breaking at the unreality of it all.  She'd held him in her fingers, and she'd let him go.  He'd never been there at all.  "In my dreams."  
  
"See?" the Doctor says, smiling (not smiling).  "I'm legitimate.  Just a dream."  
  
He gathers up his jacket, his braces, his bowtie.  Steps inside the TARDIS.  Sees red hair in the garden as he runs away.

 


	3. And She Cannot Wait To Meet Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Amelia.

One bright and shining summer day, a little girl with hair like fire and eyes as green as the rustling trees sat silently playing with a centipede.  She has named it Alfonso, and Alfonso is the most fascinating specimen she's yet to come across in all her six years of life.  She kneels over him in the dirt, her hair parting on either side of her face, the wind enticing a few flyaway strands.  She has a twig in hand, and she's placing obstacles in Alfonso's way to see how he would prevail (unlike the other children her age, the notion to actually  _harm_  the centipede did not even cross her mind).  Alfonso endures her ceaseless tests with impressive fortitude, and is uncharacteristically accepting of the girl, with her lanky, unproportional stature and bright-colored head.  Perhaps he thinks she is a sunflower.  
  
At first, she believes it's just the whistling of the breeze through the tree branches--after all, they  _are_  all around her, a safe haven of fantasy and wonder for her and Alfonso.  The trees sang all the time, or hummed at least, and sometimes Amelia liked to pretend she could predict when the next gust of wind would come, and when the trees would burst into song.  Sometimes she liked to pretend she could understand what they were humming, speak their language, sing it at least.  Sometimes she's not sure she's pretending.  
  
Amelia knows the sounds of the outdoors well.  They've become a part of her, burrowed deep inside, something she can't name but can detect the moment something's slightly off.  
  
And so she stops, looks up, listens.  Alfonso ceases his golden opportunity, and with a sigh of relief and exasperation, he scurries off into the grass.  
  
The trees were swaying wildly now, their arms surging from side to side, their leaves brushing together, their cores buzzing, twigs crackling and branches whacking, and Amelia realizes with a start they are trying to tell her something.  
  
She places the sound.  It's not the trees--it's something else.  A whir.  A whisper.  An engine, a start.  
  
She tilts her head up to the sky and there it is, the blue pumpkin carriage, the valiant white stallion, Peter Pan's ship in the sky, Time and Relative Dimension in Space--whatever you want to call it, it is there, and she recognizes it.  How?  Only the gods of time can really know.  
  
The carriage lands, and he steps out, the hero of her story--only six-year-old Amelia feels a wave of something she doesn't yet understand (and won't fully, until the day she dies) and knows that he is so much less, and so much more.  
  
She frowns as he steps closer to her and smiles (but doesn't smile).  
  
"Hello, Amelia," he says.  
  
"I've seen you somewhere before," is her reply.  
  
He smiles (but doesn't smile).  
  
"In one year, a man who looks exactly like me and talks and maybe even acts like me will be back here with you, but he is not me.  At least, not anymore."  
  
"I don't understand," says six-year-old Amelia Pond.  
  
"Of course," answers the Doctor, seemingly to himself, "of course you don't," and his forehead furrows to something like a frown.  "Just ... listen to me, Amelia," he says, kneeling down to meet her eyes, taking her hands and holding them.  "Just promise me ... promise me you'll always remember ..." Tears fill up his eyes, and Amelia is confused and scared and lonely all at once.  "Always remember that no matter how hard I try, I can't stop being yours," he whispers, chokes.  He gets up.  He's got to leave now.  His mission is complete, and that is all he can allow himself.  It should never have been his mission to begin with.  
  
He starts toward the TARDIS, then stops and turns around.  His sweet little Amelia is staring at him, mouth hanging open, a frown on her marble brow.  
  
"Oh--and Amelia," he says, "When that other man comes in a year--he won't know this, he won't remember this, but--" He smiles, winks at her.  " ... Don't feed him apples.  They're rubbish."  
  
And then he is gone, the wind raging and the trees riling up to the frenzied chorus.  
  
The wind whips her hair like fire across her face, and she looks up at the blue carriage, watching it sail away on an open sky.  
  
"Goodbye, Doctor," she says, and she cannot wait to meet him.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Rory's still clutching her body and weeping when the Doctor returns.  
  
"How long've I been?" he asks solemnly, his eyes unable to veer from Amy's cold, colorless face.  Her hair looks like dead leaves trodden underfoot in autumn, and autumn--autumn isn't summer.  
  
"Thirty seconds," Rory rasps, and then he whirls around, anger in his plain brown eyes, bitterness tainting his gentle voice.  "Where the hell did you go?  Where could you possibly have gone?"  
  
The Doctor smiles (but doesn't smile).  He shoves his hand in his pockets, shuts his lids, and a million colors, all the same, dance before his eyes like fire.  
  
"I went to watch a fairytale unfold," he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Series Six makes me sad.


End file.
